In order to compare images of the same scene taken at different times, different viewpoints, and/or by different sensors, registration of the images is performed to transform the images into one coordinate system. Once the images are transformed into a common coordinate system, the features of the images may be compared easily. Image registration is generally used in applications such as computer vision, medical imaging, automatic target registration for military, satellite imaging, remote sensing etc. For example, in medical imaging, image registration may be used for positioning a patient for a medical treatment. The positioning of the patient involves acquiring an image of the patient and comparing the acquired image with a reference image acquired prior to the treatment to determine if the position of the patient for the treatment is the same as the position of the patient in the reference image.
However, in certain aspects, a feature of the acquired image may not be aligned with the corresponding feature of the reference image, and thus, an offset in alignment may exist. Thus, the comparison of the acquired image with the reference image may not be accurate.